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Alumni Profile

Meghann Curtis

Executive Vice President, International Exchange Programs, CIEE Council on International Educational Exchange; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Academic Programs, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State

MPA, Class of 2007

Meghann Curtis serves as Executive Vice President, International Exchange Programs, CIEE Council on International Educational Exchange. Formerly, she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) where she oversaw all academic programs sponsored by the Department, including the Fulbright Program, the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, the Critical Language Scholarship, teacher exchanges, and English language programs. She was also responsible for international student advising and the marketing of American higher education through EducationUSA's network of 500 offices around the world. As the DAS for academic programs, Meghann lead strategic dialogues on education with over a dozen countries, including China, India, Brazil, and Indonesia.

Meghann also has directed the creation of several new academic exchanges including the Fulbright-Clinton Fellowship for graduates of public policy programs and former President Obama’s Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. Meghann has overseen the return of the Fulbright Program to Libya, Sudan, and Myanmar after decades-long suspensions and the expansion of programming across the Middle East, North Africa, and Central and East Asia. Meghann is a strong advocate of study abroad for Americans, promoting the expansion of the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship for American Pell Grant recipients and study abroad capacity building grants for American colleges and universities. She was a Department leader on education technology issues, advancing the creation and use of Open Educational Resources to achieve global education goals and shepherding the development of a Massive Open Online Course for English language learning.

Prior to joining ECA, Meghann served as the Senior Advisor to the Counselor and Chief of Staff at the Department of State. In this capacity, she advised Secretary Clinton on international development policies and strategies. She joined the State Department in 2007 as a Presidential Management Fellow. Meghann holds a B.A. from Vassar College and a M.P.A. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. She is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Member of the National Security Education Board.